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Monday, June 6, 2011

Bronx News Roundup, Monday, June 6

Welcome back to the program ladies and gentleman of the Bronx and beyond. Lots of great stories and information on tap for this week, so let's get to it. To the news!

Weather: In a word: Perfect. Sunny, 80 degrees with a lovely cooling breeze from the northeast. Could be looking at some rain tomorrow afternoon.

Story of the Day: Bronx Livery Cab Drivers Rally Against New Taxi Fleet
Good luck getting a cab in the Bronx this morning. On my way into BxNN headquarters today, a small army of livery cab drivers swarmed the Kingsbridge Road 4-train station, carrying signs and literature and talking strategy. An estimated 1,000 drivers and car service operators are expected to descend on City Hall to protest a city plan to create a new fleet of hail-able taxis that would operate exclusively in the outer-boroughs. The city would auction off 1,500 new taxi medallions that could legally pick up street hails. Livery drivers and business owners say this plan will do serious damage to the livery cab industry, which includes an estimated 38,000 drivers (according to literature I picked up at the train station). They say that, despite its illegality, livery drivers have picked up street hails for years and that most drivers couldn't afford to buy into the new fleet. A coalition of livery associations have come up with an alternative: create borough permits that existing drivers could sign up for and also develop livery stands where cabs can pick up street customers without the threat of receiving a summons. NY1 talked to a couple of drivers who work for Prestige car service, which operates out of Norwood here in the northwestern section of the Bronx.

Quick Hits:
On early Saturday morning, while driving with a female companion, Michael Robles, a Bronx Democratic district leader, careened off the Bronx River Parkway and dropped some 30 feet onto the top of a truck in the West Farms area. Miraculously, neither passenger was injured. It's unclear whether, for his next trick, Robles will attempt a swan dive off the High Bridge.

Erica Diaz, the lesbian granddaughter of State Senator Ruben Diaz, Sr., is becoming the face for marriage equality in New York. In Sunday's Post, Diaz writes that Diaz's outspoken and hateful rhetoric is too much for her to stomach: "You cannot tell someone that you love them and stay silent when people call for their death. "Love" is empty when you say someone's life isn't natural. He could quietly vote "no" if that's what he believes is right. But I want him to know that every word he utters hurts his own blood."

Headline of the Weekend: "Uzi does it at Bx. gun buyback." An Uzi machine gun was one of 354 guns turned in for cash at three Bronx churches on Saturday as the NYPD conducted its periodic gun buyback outreach effort. BP Ruben Diaz, Jr. told the Post: "Any day that you get an Uzi off the streets of The Bronx is a good day." Amen.

The Times' Clyde Haberman writes about how the Bronx ticket-fixing scandal has made police testimony, already a problem for Bronx prosecutors, that much less credible.

Here's more on the life of Bronx native Rosalyn S. Yalow, a Nobel prize winning physicist, who died in late May.

If City Island needed extra help on Memorial Day weekend, then why is the city looking to shut down it's only firehouse?

A missing 12-year-old Wakefield boy was reunited with his family, but his nine-day absence remains a mystery.

More on the pair of aspiring Bronx brew companies.

BxNN buddy David Gonzalez of the Times hangs out with Latin jazz flutist and Bronxite Dave Valentin for the paper's Sunday Routine feature.

Here's a video preview of Pete Rock and Bronx duo Camp Lo's new album: "80 Blocks from Tiffany's," which was inspired by (and shares a name with) the recent documentary about the South Bronx:

3 comments:

  1. Regarding the NY Post article on Bronx brew companies -- where the heck is "Knightsbridge" -- evidently one of my favorite Bronx bars, the Bronx Ale House, has moved there.

    Last week, in the Daily News article on the these same Bronx brewers, the DN reporter said the Ale House is in "Riverdale".

    What is it with the NYC tabloids and their inability to identify correctly the neighborhood of the Bronx Ale House?

    I miss having Sam Dolnick on the Bronx beat at the Old Gray Lady. He got the neighborhood right when he referenced the Ale House:

    http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/14/nyregion/14stop.html

    "New blood has changed the Kingsbridge neighborhood, in the northwest Bronx, which sits in a valley between Riverdale and the Major Deegan Expressway. But its small-town character remains strong...Stop for a beer at the Bronx Ale House, 216 West 238th Street, (718) 601-0204. With its rotating cast of American microbrews, the bar, which opened last summer, has quickly become a Bronx beer nerd's best friend..."

    ReplyDelete
  2. I usually take these distinctions lightly because we have so many more important issues to worry about (except when a News 12 reporter refers to Fordham Road as "the south Bronx"), but isn't the Ale House in Van Cortlant Park? It's a pretty good hike from there to Riverdale and it's nowhere near Kingsbridge. And lookee here, just a few short blocks to Van Cortlandt Stadium. Yep, the Ale House is in Van Cortlandt.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Gary --

    I'm not sure I understand what your mean by Van Cortlandt Park -- other than the actual park (and certainly the Ale House is not in the park)? Do you mean Van Cortlandt Village?

    The exact boundaries of neighborhoods in the Bronx is certainly something that will always be debated. But we agree that the Bronx Ale House is not in Riverdale or in "Knightsbridge".

    But it is certainly proximate, if not squarely in, Kingsbridge. Some might say Kingsbridge's eastern boundary is Broadway -- but I think it makes more sense to think of Kingsbridge of the entire valley between Riverdale and heights which rise to the east past Bailey. I've even heard people say that Kingbridge is everything North of 230th Street/Kingsbridge Road between Riverdale and whatever western border you want to give Bedford Park. Proponents of this designation say that Kingsbridge Heights and Van Cortlandt Village are sub-divisions of greater Kingsbridge.

    The map at this link seems to hold this broad view of Kingsbridge:

    http://www.talkbx.com/forum/gallery/index.php?n=9

    ReplyDelete

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